ABC’s new fall series Blood & Oilis making a behind-the-scenes change. I’ve learned that Jon Harmon Feldman is in negotiations to join the sprawling drama as executive producer and sole showrunner as part of an overall deal with Blood & Oil producer ABC Studios. He would succeed at the helm Cynthia Cidre, who boarded the series at the beginning of June as co-showrunner alongside co-creator Josh Pate. She is staying on and will remain an executive producer on the series.

I hear that, while things did not jell with Cidre in a showrunner role, ABC Studios, which had signed Cidre in an overall deal, likes her as a writer on Blood & Oil and had been looking to bolster the show’s upper-level writer-producer ranks. The change comes after the series, which films on location in Utah, shot the first episode after the pilot and has faced production challenges related to its big scope.

Cidre was not on the Blood & Oil TCA panel this morning, with her absence explained as a result of a personal matter. “She is executive producing on the show,” executive producer Tony Krantz said, adding ” she is part of the family of what we’re doing.”

ABC/ABC Studios has been in a similar situation before with Feldman, who joined another soapy drama, Dirty Sexy Money, as showrunner after the previous showruner had left. He also co-created/executive produced for ABC and ABC Studios No Ordinary Family. WME-repped Feldman most recently worked on WGN America’s Salem.

Written by Pate and Rodes Fishburne and executive produced by Krantz, Blood & Oil centers on a young working-class couple (Chace Crawford, Rebecca Rittenhouse) who move to “The Bakken” in North Dakota, booming after the biggest oil discovery in American history, where they are pitted against a ruthless tycoon (Don Johnson) who forces them to bet big and put everything on the line, including their marriage.

Blood & Oil, which underwent some casting changes, landed on ABC’s fall schedule in the high-profile Sunday 9 PM slot behind Once Upon A Time.